(AllHipHop News) New York emcee Joey Bada$$ dropped his latest mixtape Summer Knights yesterday, and to coincide with the release of the new project Rolling Stone published a Q&A with the Brooklyn resident. In the interview, Joey discusses working on his debut studio album, why he decided not to sign with Jay-Z, and his personal favorite album of Hip Hop Super Tuesday releases on June 18th.

“My favorite is definitely Born Sinner. Definitely. Yeah, that’s my favorite. Out of the question,” said Joey when asked about his preferred LP among J. Cole’s Born Sinner, Kanye West’s Yeezus, Mac Miller’s Watching Movies with the Sound Off, and Statik Selektah’s Extended Play.

While Joey is a fan of Cole’s second album, he has a lot of his own fans patiently waiting for the release of his first album B4.DA.$$. Joey explains that the project has not come out yet because he wants to make sure he takes his time to create a great project.

“I don’t want to rush it, and I don’t want to force anything out. I want it to be perfect,” said Joey. “But I definitely already started working on it, and I want to continue to take my time with it.”

Joey shares there is one Hip Hop legend he hopes to make an appearance on the album: his fellow Brooklynite Jay-Z. Whether that collaboration takes place will be revealed at a later date. One thing that is clear now is Joey may want to make music with Jay but he is not ready to take him on as a boss. He wants to stay independent for now.

“I think it’s important to stay independent as an artist,” explained Joey on why he did not sign Roc Nation. “My rollout was, ‘I’m just going to do this shit from the ground up, I’m going to start my own record label. I ain’t going to sign to nobody. I’m just going to do it on my own.'”

So far the independent route seems to be working for the eighteen year old. Joey’s Summer Knights free album has been available for less than 24 hours and already has over 40,000 downloads on datpiff.com.

“I’m actually pretty excited for [Summer Knights],” said Joey. “It’s gonna be some weight lifted off of my shoulders and onto the next. And my next shit is gonna be crazy.”